Sweet Pain: My Epic - Part I

By Sheri Bruno

Life, the world over, is saturated with all kinds of pain. However, in the midst of the pain there are escapes that allow us to breathe, love, smile, appreciate and enjoy whatever little we get to salvage. Sweet Pain is an epic of intentional adventures that overpowered a life that was destined for suffering and ultimately, destruction. Very simple events translated an ordinary experience into an extraordinary adventure! By this, an innocent but very attentive conscience blossomed into a gigantic heart of unspeakable gratitude. A heart overwhelmed with fascination over things that seem commonplace to many but to this heart a cherished luxury. “Sweet Pain” an Epic of Love overpowering Pain because Love never fails!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664279568

Sheri Bruno

The Author Sheri Bruno is an ordinary young woman born and raised in the beautiful Island of Saint Lucia, West Indies. She is currently employed with the government as a Human Resource Officer. However, her passion for the desk is secondary to her compassion for the multitude of human beings suffering common ills all around her and the world over. Having served as confidant to many youth and adults alike, she now embarks on the simple but priceless gesture of revealing her authentic world. Though ordinary, she bears an extra-ordinary perspective of a life experience which is very relatable but too often not valued. Her ability to captivate and draw readers into her world whilst simultaneously re-visiting their own world; to love, cherish and enjoy: their journey, the people, places and things, is fascinating. There is absolutely no better expression to sum up her style than to say it’s straight up in your face, candid and raw. So dig in! You won’t regret it!

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 Sheri Bruno.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by

any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author

except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

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ISBN: 978-1-6642-7955-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-7957-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-7956-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022918086

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/18/2022

Contents

Introduction

Encounter Special Presentation

Preamble

Interview With Ms. Ruth Chyler

Encounter Special Episodes

My Community, My Neighborhood

Growing Up

School Days

My Spiritual Life

My Family

My Daddy!

My Mama!

My Natural Adoption

A Failed Re-Union

My Daddy’s Last Days

My Mama’s Last Days

Spiritual Adoption

Summary

Family Matters

Letter to Daddy

Letter to Mama

Message to the Adopted and the Despondent

Message to Adoptive Parents Active and Prospects

Divine Acknowledgement

Introduction

I magine what society would be like if everyone had a solid family foundation. A place to call home! A people to whom they belong! For sure our crime situation would be narrowed down, juvenile delinquency would be almost non-existent and of course, many other social ills would be restrained.

Given that this is our coveted reality; many children are abandoned by parents who themselves are in need of rescue in one way or another. This is a horrible cycle which has plagued humanity for generations.

A stable family setting gives a child an opportunity to become a gracious, law abiding, contented and productive member of society. By this seemingly isolated act, parents and guardians are building and shaping nations.

In Sweet Pain Sheri Bruno, a Journalist, launches her story, an adoption experience, as a hard hit reaction to an interview conducted with a beloved school guidance counselor. Ms. Ruth Chyler’s effectiveness as a counselor is enshrined in her own unsavory experiences. Her journey is characterized by instability and undesirable diversions in her adoption experience. This forced her into premature independence and triggered her survival mode. To survive, she lived off her body and submitted to a life she very much despised, but was totally overpowered by. She was eventually rescued by a good Samaritan and took advantage of the opportunity to regain control of her life. Hers, and now her daughter’s. To her students, she appears as one who is so sheltered from the storms of life. She is elegant, beautiful, warm and welcoming, nothing short of regal. However, they discover for the first time how she is so well able to relate to them and be so effective in helping them. Her reality stuns the students.

By this, Sheri had a melt-down from the overwhelming gratitude she felt for the stable life she had as an adopted child. She is a sum total of very simple acts of love and kindness extended casually every day, primarily by her adoptive parents and family, but as well by countless others in the places and at the times that it mattered most.

As a product of a very rewarding adoption experience, Sheri was adequately equipped to resist her biological mother’s attempt to discredit her adoptive parents’ love on the basis of the lack of material gain. Needless to say, all efforts to reunite with her biological mother have all failed, miserably.

Encounter

Special Presentation

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G ood evening viewers,

T onight’s special episode of ENCOUNTER begins now!

As always, tonight’s programme is after your heart. So gather your family together and call others to tune in and watch this once in a lifetime presentation.

You won’t regret it.

Please stay tuned. I am your host, Sheri Bruno!

Preamble

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M y profession is anything but boring and for this reason I really love what I do. Oh, how I love my job! I have the pleasure of meeting a wide cross-section of people from a host of backgrounds. Some appear flawless, to the point that they seem like fairy tales and others are sheer nightmares. This kind of exposure has altered my view and interpretation of the world, people and life itself. I have had the pleasure also of hosting a variety of panel discussions, sitting on judges’ panel for various national youth competitions; I’ve presided as master of ceremonies at several dignified functions and my favorite to recall is when I sat as Chief Judge on a panel at a Fashion Show. Yeah! My inclusion on this one ruffled some feathers, but I was chosen and stayed put without fear or intimidation. What they didn’t know about me back then was how much of a secret fashionista I really was. I agreed with them on one thing, that being, I didn’t look the part. But, too bad, it was all locked up inside of me waiting for the ideal opportunity. Hey! Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Anyway, these are just a few of the exciting aspects of what I get to do as a professional. The flip side to that are the overwhelming encounters with more than heartbreaking stories of children, youth, men and women struggling to find their place in this world of ours without any meaningful help or sustainable intervention. Dare I say here that the numbers are way too startling? Folks, I don’t know what, but this I know: we must do something. We cannot continue to allow this to fester. We must HELP; every time we can, we should.

Interview With

Ms. Ruth Chyler

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Welcome back!

Thank you for staying tuned.

You are watching a special episode of Encounter!

T onight’s discussion may seem a bit worn out or recycled to some of you but dare I say, this is so, simply because it is an unsolved mystery for our generation.

So many questions, so few answers!

Can we fix our society? What is going on with the children, youth and adults alike? Do we really care? Do we have any interest in their background or the struggles they grapple with daily? Can we see their pain? Can we hear their cry? Do we even care? Can a child make someone love and care for them? Think about your own life for a moment. What kind of life do you have now? What did it take for you to be who you are today?

Many students avoid school Guidance Counselors fearing that their cherished secrets will be scattered all over the staff room and school premises because of the perceived lack of confidentiality. Additionally, they dread being judged and blamed for things beyond their control. In this presentation, a beloved school Guidance Counselor unveils her personal story and shakes her students to the core!

Unlike the norm, she is so welcoming and admired by the students at her school that they brag about her to their counterparts at other schools. They warm up to her easily, highly esteems her and shares their deepest secrets so comfortably with her. In their eyes, she is so perfect, so nice, so well put together; nothing short of regal! It seems like she has always been sailing through life, struggle free! Hassle free! But little do they know!

She is well poised to shed some light on these concerns primarily because she is quite a success story! She is a very precious young lady with a remarkable story. From our pre-interview, it became very clear to me why she was selected for this presentation. She expresses her experience with clarity which compels you to listen and challenges you to get involved. Most importantly, my guest is a huge surprise, specifically to our studio audience.

I promise you; tonight’s programme is a must-see!

My surprise guest tonight is none other than the ever popular and beloved, Ms. Ruth Chyler!

Please, join me and make very welcome, Ms. Ruth Chyler!